Christmas is a most joyous time of year. At least, it should be.
But this year, even though families across town and around the country will do their level best to enjoy all this season has to offer, there is a pall that hangs over the United States. It is called Donald Trump.
I, and I suppose many others, would prefer to watch for the umpteenth time Frank Capra’s masterpiece, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, is a man who has performed a lifetime of goodness for others, many of them strangers, but finds himself buried beneath mountains of debt and nowhere to turn because of a power-hungry and narcissistic Mr. Potter — whose jealousy of George Banks’ popularity has driven him to a dark place from which there seems no escape.
Instead, I watched the impeachment hearings in the Congress and the subsequent political jousting that followed between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Unlike the movie, though, there appears to be no happy ending in sight.
The basic goodness of man — displayed without qualification in the character of George Banks — has been missing from the man who is our president. Instead of helping those less fortunate and hurting from the trials and tribulations of ordinary life as Bank’s does without fail, Trump’s real life character fails at every human level to show a humanity that is exemplified by this holiday season.
This country is exhausted from the daily, nonstop assault on our mores and norms by President Trump. So much so that we can’t even find the energy to watch our feel-good movies for fear that we will miss the next installment of Trump’s destruction of democracy — no matter how much we would prefer to turn the channel.
I don’t think the result of the impeachment trial of President Trump is in doubt. It takes a two-thirds majority of the 100-member body — 67 votes— to convict. Trump has 53 cult-like votes he controls in the Senate, which means he’s likely to skate.
But what he can never escape is his impeachment.
Unlike George Bank’s fate in the movie — he is embraced by a community that loves and respects him for who he is and what he means to the people he serves — Trump’s ending will not be so joyously written.
He will remain forever impeached and a character more like the mean-spirited and selfish Mr. Potter than the man he actually believes himself to be — the beloved and admired and respected George Banks.
It is Christmas, which may explain why the evangelical magazine Christianity Today finally called for the “grossly immoral and ethically incompetent” Mr. Potter’s ouster — whoops, I meant Mr. Trump. I get these bad actors mixed up sometimes but the message is clear. Even support in the evangelical community is starting to splinter.
And because it is Christmas, we wish as we always do for peace on Earth. And hope, at a time when hope is in short supply, for peace at home. One American at a time.
To all people of good will and good cheer, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, a most joyous holiday season and a Happy New Year.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun